Subject: SIR, GOANS ARE TOO ANGRY HELP US TAKE ISSUES IN DELHI HELP US GOANS TO COME PEACEFUL LAW FROM INDIA-Limit on carrying gold irks Indian
Limit on carrying gold irks Indians REJIMON K July 30, 2012 Thanks to the old laws, Indian expats have to pay exhorbitan customs duty for carrying gold. -Supplied receipt Email the story Print the story RSS feed Muscat: Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has reportedly assured a panel of parliamentarians on easing the Central Board of Excise & Customs department's baggage allowance regulations, which forbid non-resident Indian (NRI) passengers from taking back gold jewellery worth more than Rs10,000 (RO75) for men and Rs20,000 (RO150) for women. "Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has assured us that he will initiate steps to amend the age-old gold duty exemption limit. He has assured us that amendments will be made in such a way that duty calculation will be made on the basis of quantity and not on the basis of the gold price rate,- P. Rajeev, an Indian Parliament member, told Times of Oman over phone. India's Central Board of Excise and Customs, which falls under its Ministry of Finance, stipulates that "an Indian passenger who has been residing abroad for over one year is allowed to bring jewellery, free of duty in his bona fide baggage up to an aggregate value of Rs10,000 (in the case of a male passenger) or Rs20,000 (in the case of a lady passenger).- Going by the existing gold rates, women of "world's most gold crazy nation- can bring into country only 7.1 gm of gold ornaments duty free. For men, the limit is 3.5 gm! Anything above that miserly limit is taxable under the Indian law, and if you're passing through the green channel with more than a few grams of gold, then the officer in-charge will be well within his rights to ask you to pay duty on the jewellery and/or face prosecution for trying to "smuggle- gold and evade duty. Though the Indian Custom Baggage Rules of 1998 were amended by the finance ministry in 2006, the limits for duty-free jewellery imports were left untouched. Adding to the woes of the passengers, the Centre, in its last budget revised the duty rates for excess gold carried in person from Rs750 (RO5) per 10 gm to the ad valorem rate of 10 per cent of the value of the ornaments plus three per cent of the duty as education cess. So a passenger wearing a gold chain weighing five sovereigns (40gm) would have to pay Rs11,515 (RO80) as customs duty. "I had to pay around Rs20,000 (RO150) at Thiruvananthapuram airport. The government is exploiting us with the help of an age-old law. I saw many who were stranded at airport without having enough money to pay duty,- Wilson Mathew, who travelled to Thiruvananthapuram from Muscat last week, told Times of Oman. "It is a shame that our government is sticking to a 1967 rule related to gold when the gold prices have skyrocketed in recent years,- Wilson said, adding that he saw a lot people giving the gold to the officials to keep it in the lockers at the airport, which they can collect while returning back. Meanwhile, the customs officials have now made it mandatory for the NRIs to declare the amount of gold they have before they leave India, as they can avoid paying duty on this when they return. Even if the passengers lose the receipts provided by the officials, their declaration details can found by the official as digital details will be stored by the officials. Recently, the government reduced the maximum allowable limit of importing gold as part of baggage from 10kg per passenger to 1kg and there are certain conditions set by the government to import gold as baggage. (Follow timesofoman.com on Facebook and on Twitter for updates that you can share with your friends.) http://www.timesofoman.com/innercat.aspx?detail=9287
